"Franchot never ceases to amaze me. He is the most honest person I have ever met and I do admire honesty. He has a wonderful perspective on everything. We are so good for each other because, when I get upset, I think emotionally. Franchot has a reserve that is a godsend. It saves him so much and allows him to handle a situation so much better. His ideas are good and he has such a nice way of carrying them out. He is a highly interesting conversationalist. Besides loving him as a husband, I have great admiration for him as a man."-wife Joan Crawford, 1936.

"He has a sense of humor as gay and sprightly as a leprechaun's—but that's his secret. On the surface, even he has accepted the Tone legend. Sophisticated, erudite, aloof—all the admirable but chilling synonyms for Tone which have become his tag in Hollywood. But casual? Indifferent, my eye! The man is shy. Honest to goodness shy. Things matter greatly to Franchot but, like the leprechaun's charming approach to reality, his disguise of such caring is complete.Type your paragraph here."-publicist Helen Ferguson, 1948.

"You can't resent a man just because he looks like a "Man of Distinction" at the breakfast table when you've seen him, with infinite patience, console his son when his favorite toy was broken, or discipline his first-born with firmness, when a toss-off would have been easier by far. As Franchot's wife I've come to respect a lot of things which, when I was a youngster, seemed unimportant. It was inevitable, I suppose, that I first resisted his attraction for me—disliked him, even, because of it. Perhaps in a vague way I realized the enchantment his even-tempered, almost casual way would throw about me. It's no longer enchantment—it's real. I guess through all of this I've been trying to say what is fully said in a simple sentence. Franchot is civilized. That's his burden—and his glory. It's my pride and my cross."-wife Jean Wallace, 1948.

"There was a gentleness about him, a fineness, but by the end of an evening he would descend fuzzily into a passive melancholy that reminded me of the Clifford Odets play Golden Boy."-costar Gloria Vanderbilt, 1994.

"...we shared an unspoken bond. We were both romantics—incurable to the last—and our separate upbringings shared the same confusion of identity. He may have seen in me, occasionally, his younger self. I'm not sure and I wouldn't wish it on him; but I saw in him someone I could perhaps aspire to; not the hidden sad, pained man that was part of Franchot but the part he couldn't conceal, no matter how hard he tried, the part that was refined, noble and infinitely kind—the man of golden promise."-costar Christopher Plummer, 2008.

"His career never reached the height his ex-wife's [Joan Crawford] did, because, I think, he seemed to have had too much given to him. Wealth, for example. His father was the president of the Carborundum Company. Brains. Phi Beta Kappa from Cornell. Talent. A superstar. Problems. Lack of discipline. But he enjoyed life to the end, loving and being loved by an army of fans and friends...Franchot and I remained close friends from that first meeting with his bride until I spoke at his funeral."-friend and costar Burgess Meredith, 1994.